


holy. pure.

by ElinOlivia



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Also No One else matters, Because I did, Fix-It of Sorts, I love The concept of this character so much that canon doesn’t matter anymore, Oneshot, Other, This fic is a, You ever see a character and think, i guess questionmark, i just love her so much. so i wrote a fic where she's the only named character, lmao. to be fair im also lazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:46:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElinOlivia/pseuds/ElinOlivia
Summary: Her name meant holy. Pure. She certainly was. How could she not be, when she was divinity unto itself? She was destruction incarnate and they all felt it. Her most of all. She was white-hot to the touch, brilliant to the sight, often too celestial to even hold in the mind.—Alternate title: Local Arsonist Goes On A (Spiritual) Backpacking Trip And Finds Herself.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	holy. pure.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Jonny Sims for creating such a lovely and rich cast of characters.
> 
> So look, I fell in love with Agnes instantly and I really wanted to write something for her. But I've taken some uhhhhh liberties plot wise (and character wise) so this isn’t what I’d call canon-compliant.
> 
> Also I wrote this in a frenzy in the middle of the night so if you spot any mistakes please tell me. I might edit this someday.

She was fire.  
  
Delicious, delightful, warm, welcoming and alive.  
  
She was fire and she was alive.  
  
—  
  
Agnes was surrounded by smoke. It felt almost palpable on her hands, her cheeks, her lips. The smoke curled towards her, _wanted_ her, and she wanted it too. As she breathed in, she felt it tickle her nose on its way to her lungs. She could feel it awaken every cell it passed. Set every cell ablaze. Set every cell right.  
  
She breathed out, and in again. Out. In. the smoke danced in the dimly lit room. Agnes had the fleeting desire to join the smoke and flame in their alluring patterns, but was content to lie down and consume the life-giving fumes. For now. The smoke fed her, because it fed her fire, and they were one and the same.  
  
—  
  
Her name meant holy. Pure. She certainly was. How could she not be, when she was divinity unto itself? She was destruction incarnate and they all felt it. Her most of all. She was white-hot to the touch, brilliant to the sight, often too celestial to even hold in the mind. She held lives in her slender hands and shattered them as easily as a pebble shatters a window.  
  
Not every life though. She was careful with the lives of her likes. Almost-likes. Those who cared for her and loved her and gave her life back when she began to fray at the edges. Those who rejoiced in destruction and served the Desolation alongside her. Her almost-likes, she handled with care.  
  
Agnes loved her life. She loved being the holy vessel to her god, loved using her more-than-mortal hands to execute its will and follow its whims and please it. It had been her role since birth, her purpose growing up and her only joy as an adult. It was her only option. It was her only option, because she couldn’t fathom that any other way of existing could give her as much fulfilment. There was nothing she wanted more than to be Agnes Montague.  
  
—  
  
Agnes breathed in. She had been longing for the sweet scent of hopelessness, and for the glowing sensation it evoked in her. She gazed at the flames’ living shadows on the wall as she felt herself ignite, the sputtering fire inside her coming alive once again. She breathed out as the blazing feeling of despair settled into her bones. It was a relief. She needed this in order to properly serve her god. She needed it in order to feel like herself. Subservience to her god _was_ who she was. And she loved it.  
  
—  
  
Her life consisted of ruining others. She delighted in it because of her nature as fire incarnate. That was who she had been raised to be and who she was.  
  
Agnes watched as the home she had set ablaze slowly burned to ash. Rich shades of ruby and amber played across the surrounding trees and something in Agnes’s very core rejoiced at the sight. She didn’t know the details of the newly homeless family’s situation, but her almost-likes had been happy enough to let her burn it. And she felt the pure correctness of the fire in her rejoicing core.  
  
There was something else, too. A flickering feeling of something she was not used to. A feeling of satisfaction stemming from nothing but her own personal bitterness at these people-  
It wasn’t possible. There was no personal. She _was_ the Desolation. She had never been anything else.  
  
—  
  
In. Out. The smoke trickled into her depleted, smouldering cells. One after another, they lit up, becoming a raging heat that warmed Agnes’s soul. She laid on the floor, watching the smoke curl in the faint, flickering light. She laid on the floor, but she could have stood up, could have run a thousand miles, and could have set the whole world aflame, if she wanted to. She wanted to.  
  
Agnes breathed in. She didn’t need to burn down the world, not when the smoke and its delicious anguish sustained her and made her feel right. Finally, she felt right. She felt white-hot and holy, just like she was supposed to.  
  
—  
  
Her touch could melt a person’s insides with the lightest touch. Agnes delighted in the action, especially when her victim was a child, or someone else with unlimited potential. This was what made her feel sated.  
  
Her almost-likes delighted as well. They used their own spark alongside her and they reached rapture together by ruining every life they came across. Agnes and these people who cared for her and loved her and gave her life back when she began to fray at the edges and took all choice away from her.  
  
Agnes delighted in the ruining of lives, and she delighted the most when the lives had contained unlimited choices. It gave her a flicker of bitter vindication, because she had never gotten to decide a single thing-  
  
—  
  
The fumes from the candles had a wonderful scent, utterly unlike anything else. It smelled like _life_.  
  
Agnes let her lungs fill anew and was in turn filled with blessed relief. She needed the smoke, because it made her and the Desolation one, and she needed to be one with her god. She didn’t know who she was if she was alone.  
  
No. There was no alone. She couldn’t be alone, because she was the Desolation incarnate.  
  
—  
  
Again, she watched a house burn to the ground. Again, she watched the brilliant colours sweep across her surroundings, and again, she was among her people. Her almost-likes. Her caregivers and lovers and jailers.  
  
She gazed at the house as it burned and burned. She could _feel_ the ruined potential. She could feel her own ruined potential. Who would she have been if not for her would-be caregivers and lovers?  
  
She remembered the flickers of anger she had felt before. She remembered her feelings of jealousy and bitterness directed at everyone whose life was theirs to shape.  
  
She felt…  
  
She felt something other than hunger or satiety or pleasure or delight. She felt alone. She felt empty, a bone-hollowing emptiness she had never before experienced. She felt like Agnes, sans Desolation, but in desolation.  
  
She felt like Agnes, but she didn’t know who Agnes was when not intertwined with her god. She had been created to be nothing but a vessel, and without her content she was nothing but a hollow shell.  
  
There was something, though. A sputtering, new-born fury. Burning.  
  
—  
  
Her lovers saw that the change in her, and so they jailed her.  
  
The room was black until they lit the candles.  
  
—  
  
In. Out. In. Out.  
  
—  
  
The smoke permeated her. It made her feel like herself. Finally. It had been so long since she had felt like herself, perfectly aligned with her god, as was her purpose. Agnes breathed in. Out. The writhing smoke gifted her the sense of relief that came with being one with her god, a sense of relief that she had been waiting desperately for.  
The dancing fumes continued their path through her systems, and gave her back her beloved heat.  
  
Heat. Burning.  
  
What?  
  
The burning reminded her of something else, a feeling of… was it anger?  
  
Surely not. There was no space in her life for anger. There was only her god, its destruction and her almost-likes.  
  
Her jailers. Her people who had put her here against her will, who had conceived her and birthed her and raised her with one single purpose, to sacrifice her to a god of destruction.  
  
The burning spark blossomed in her chest. It was anger, no, _fury_ , and it consumed her. The Desolation was relegated to the edges of Agnes’s mind as she fought to understand this novel feeling. This sense of… anger directed at those who stole her life from her. This sense of grief at the thought that she could have led a different life. A life for herself.  
  
Agnes sat up. The smoke, which danced still, felt oppressive. Invasive. It wanted to steal her anger and she would not let it take anything else from her.  
  
The room went pitch-black as she blew out the candles. She stumbled as she got to her feet, the darkness as unfamiliar to her as her own new emotions. But. She would not let this power take anything else from her. She would not let it destroy her now.  
  
She would live. And she would live for herself.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] holy. pure.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28491120) by [luftnarp-podfic (secretsofluftnarp)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsofluftnarp/pseuds/luftnarp-podfic), [secretsofluftnarp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsofluftnarp/pseuds/secretsofluftnarp)




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